


Near-Life

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Angst, Apocalypse, Happy Ending, M/M, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:34:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben was always a survivor, even surrounded by the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Near-Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whymzycal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whymzycal/gifts).



> Originally written for the [7thnight_smut](http://community.livejournal.com/7thnight_smut/) gift exchange 2009.

Ben thought that as far as the whole "end of the world" thing went, he was pretty smart. He had always been a survivor. Good thing too or he never would have made it all those years alone on the streets after he ran away from home. Hell, he would have been dead before he got out of grade school for that matter. As far as Ben was concerned, even cockroaches had nothing on him.

So when the whole world went to hell in an express elevator, Ben just did what he did best: he boarded up his doors and windows (he was on the 12th floor, but you could just never tell--plus there was the fire escape to think about) and hunkered down to weather out the shit storm.

For the first few days he watched the news reports, watched the footage of the dead clawing their way out of their graves and sitting up on their mortuary slabs and then just chowing down on whomever happened to be close enough to sink their teeth into; and then those poor fucks would die--even if it was just a little flesh wound, he had seen it happen on a live news broadcast to a CNN anchor. Then lather, rinse, repeat. People thought it was a virus or maybe radiation; but who really cared? Maybe it was neither of those things. What caused it wasn't the point. The point was that the dead were getting up and _eating_ people.

Man-kind had become so much hot lunch.

After a while, the news shows went off the air, and then the only thing to watch were televangelists preaching the End of Days and how all humanity was going to burn in Hell. Ben stopped watching after that. He didn't believe in God, so there was no point in trying to get his soul saved by the wide-eyed southern psycho on TV.

A few days later, when he got bored of playing Solitaire, he turned the TV back on, and there was nothing to see. Just snow, not even the emergency broadcast signal with the little ticker across the bottom telling everyone to seek shelter at this church or that school, or even as far away as Fort Pastor.

Just...nothing.

That was about the time that Ben realized he hadn't heard any screaming for a long time, or any gunshots in longer than that.

He spent a few hours lying on his threadbare sofa just listening, eyes closed, chewing the inside of his lip until it stung, and trying to decide if he was the only person left alive. At first he thought it wouldn't be so bad--sort of like that movie with Will Smith, except he didn't have a dog to keep him company--but gradually the total silence became more unnerving than the chaos had been.

Finally he got up, pulled the boards away from the living room window and looked down at the street.

There was less to see than he expected, and he hadn't been expecting much. The most eye-catching sight was a five car pile-up out in front of the building; besides that he could see an overturned hotdog cart and a lot of broken glass catching the sunlight like someone's sick idea of festive glitter. The building across the street was missing most of its windows and some unlucky shit had thrown themselves from the roof, with a rope tied around their neck; of course the guy hadn't really died, instead he hung against the brickwork, kicking almost tiredly even as the heat of the sun made his body swell like a putrid balloon. That was the worst of it that Ben could see, but it was enough for him to be glad that he wasn't at street level.

Suddenly, something overhead crashed, loud enough to make Ben jump and curse. When the initial shock wore off, he held his breath and listened for more. He heard the screech of a kitchen chair being pushed across cheap linoleum, and something that sounded like glass crunching under foot.

It was just one of those undead things, he decided, stumbling around in the apartment upstairs. He could even guess who it might be. 1404, the apartment directly above his, was home to a thin, mousy guy about Ben's age, and his cheerful, bright-eyed sister. Ben had always thought their living arrangement was a little...weird, but they seemed nice enough on the surface. The brother was polite, but had a bit of an odd sense of humour. He taught immigrants how to read and was studying something--sociology, maybe? It had an -ology at the end anyway, as far as Ben could remember--at the community college, and the sister waited tables at the late night cafe a few blocks over near the old church, and volunteered at the soup kitchen there.

They were good people, and it made Ben feel badly that he couldn't remember their names, even if that sort of thing didn't matter anymore.

***

Before the so-called apocalypse, Ben had worked a dead-end job stocking shelves at a local grocery, thirty-eight hours a week of arranging cans of Chef Boyardee and packs of Charmin into neat little pyramids--not forty hours, because then they would have had to give him benefits and crap. On his off hours, he mostly hung out with Drew, who had been his friend since back at the farm, drank, smoked a little too much pot, and tried to feel content with his life.

Mostly he succeeded. He had never thought to aim very high, so it wasn't much of a letdown when he missed the mark on something.

Drew, Ben figured, was probably holed up somewhere too. Drew was smart--survival-smart anyway--he and Ben had run away from their asswipe of a little town together when they decided they didn't want to pull tractors and dig ditches for the rest of their lives.

Ben had lived on his own ever since, which was why he had no intention of trying to find out if anyone else was still alive, or of trying to get to any one of the shelters that might still be safe. His own strength hadn't failed him yet, so there was no reason not to trust it.

The first thing he decided he was going to need was more food; ten days had pretty much exhausted his meagre supplies. For that sort of thing Ben figured the apartment building was the next best thing to a shopping mall--most of the other tenants had run off at the first sign of trouble--leaving Ben with 14 floors of apartments to pick through. The water and electricity were all still running; he figured that stuff was all so automated that it would just run itself until something went really wrong. Food was his biggest worry.

And smokes, he could really use a good smoke.

He didn't think a gun would be a bad thing to get a hold of, either, if he could. All he had was a Louisville Slugger he kept under the bed just out of old habit. But it was better than nothing at all, and certainly good enough to get him across the hallway to raid his neighbour's cupboards.

Still, once he had the barricade off the door, it took a lot to work up the courage to step out into the hallway. He had seen what those things could do just from the news footage, and he wasn't keen on meeting a rotting corpse that wanted him for lunch face to face, even if he was armed. He definitely didn't want to become one of the undead army. But the other choice was to starve to death, and he wasn't so stupid as to think that would stop his uninhabited body from getting up again.

Would it really be uninhabited he wondered, or would his soul be trapped helplessly inside his rotting body, unable to resist the urge to gorge itself on living flesh?

He shook the thought off with a shudder and unlocked the door.

Outside, the hallway was deserted, but not without signs of what had happened. There was a long streak of gore all across the wall between 1205 and 1207. A child's doll lay forgotten in the hallway, along with a work boot and a kitchen knife. The carpet was crusted in places with dried blood that crunched faintly under Ben's shoes. There was a smell, too, a bad meat smell, a little sweet, a little sour; Ben tried to breathe through his mouth.

The door to 1205 was open just a crack, but enough that Ben saw no reason not to walk right in. The interior was pretty much undisturbed; the only thing that looked out of place was a vase full of flowers--now dead--tipped over on an end table.

Ben went straight for the kitchen, setting the bat aside on the counter and yanking open the pantry door; he didn't trust much of anything left behind in the fridge after ten days, but the cupboard was a wealth of instant noodles, boxes of crackers, canned soup, even canned fruit and a box of Oreo cookies that made his mouth water just on sight.

It was when he turned away to look for something to put his haul in that he saw the little girl.

He almost opened his mouth to say something like _"hey sweetie--are you alright?"_ because when he could just see the right side of her as she came around the corner from the living room she _looked_ normal--tiny and pale, dressed in a sunny yellow nightgown with Winnie the Pooh on the sleeve, maybe a little stunned, but alive--until she turned fully towards him and he saw the other half of her face.

It looked like someone had grabbed her by her left ear and just _pulled_ \- pulled until the skin on the left side of her face had peeled away in one big strip, exposing raw, slick muscle and white bone. He could see the tendons that were holding her tiny blue eye in its socket, as well as the ones that worked her jaw, with its perfect white baby teeth, up and down. She moved towards him, shuffling like a sleepwalker, and stretched her arms out, as if asking to be picked up. A sound escaped her throat, a soft, gurgling moan of mindless hunger.

Ben grabbed the bat and jabbed her in the throat with the blunt end and she stumbled back. She made a sort of whimpering sound that made him even more reluctant to hit her, so he planted the bat in the center of her chest and pushed her back towards the living room instead. There wasn't even enough intelligence left in her dead mind to try and move sideways to escape the pressure of the bat. Ben gave her one last shove and she stumbled backwards and hit the edge of the coffee table, finally falling over. The fall didn't stun her; even though the back of her head hit the edge of the table, as soon as she was down she was trying to get back up again, trying to get at Ben.

Ben lifted the bat, slung it back over his shoulder preparing to swing--because dammit--kid or not she still wanted to eat him--and something grabbed him from behind. His elbow came back on reflex, hitting the dead man in the solar plexus so that his fetid breath came out along the side of Ben's neck in a sour rush, accompanied by a helpless groan. Rotting fingers caught the collar of Ben's shirt, tearing it as the creature fell backwards into the hallway, knocking over the dead woman that was staggering out of the bedroom behind him. Ben bolted for the front door as the little girl's fingers reached for his hip, his heart racing so fast it seemed to be competing with his lungs for all the space in his chest. He had enough good sense or survival instinct to slam the door to 1205 as he made it out into the hallway; the lifeless fists beat uselessly against it, a chorus of moans mourning his escape.

"Jesus...Jesus..." Ben panted, clutching his ribs and trying to steady himself against the door to his own apartment as he fumbled with the lock. Finally he got the door open, stumbled into the kitchen, and emptied his guts into the sink.

***

It took him a few hours to work up the courage to think about leaving the apartment again. By then the sun was sinking and he was losing daylight. He didn't really want to be wandering around the building after dark, risking letting those things get the jump on him, but he didn't want to go too long without staking his claim either. There was no telling if some other survivor might come along and try to do the same thing, and he didn't want to be fighting the living along with the dead. At least the creatures were stupid--too stupid to even open doors--but Ben knew how cunning and dangerous the living could be.

He was trying to decide which apartment might be safe enough to try--surely everyone couldn't have been at home when the shit hit the fan--when he heard another noise from the floor above: a thump, then a sound like something heavy being dragged. It sounded too damned deliberate to be one of the dead; frankly, they didn't make much noise unless something got their attention, even the ones behind the door of 1205 had gone quiet eventually.

It seemed pretty damned likely that Ben wasn't the only person in the building who still had a heartbeat.

Ben didn't trust using the elevator--even to go one floor. The last thing he wanted was to end up trapped in the damn thing if the power _did_ decide to go out. So with bat in hand he slipped carefully into the stairwell--which actually didn't look or smell any worse than it had before the dead decided to get up and walk--and climbed up to the next floor.

There was a dead body lying just outside the stairwell door, a truly dead one; its throat was torn out and it had what looked like the handle of a kitchen knife sticking out through the side of its skull. Ben prodded it with his foot, and when it didn't get up and try to chew on his ankle, he stepped over it and continued down the hall. Just around the corner, the door to 1401 stood wide open, and when Ben looked in he saw a guy trying to hoist a body through the living room window.

"Hey!"

The guy jumped, dropping the corpse--and Ben recognized him immediately--his quiet, polite upstairs neighbour. The one with the sister.

"You shouldn't sneak up on a person like that."

Ben shrugged. "What are you doing?"

The guy looked down at the body, which had slumped against the wall. "Getting rid of this. It isn't sanitary to have dead bodies just lying around rotting, you know."

"Better than walking around," Ben reasoned.

The guy laughed awkwardly. It almost seemed like the effort hurt him. "Yes, I suppose that is true. You're Ben, is that right?"

"Yeah," Ben nodded, and guy's name came to him as suddenly as a knock to the head. "Henry?"

The guy nodded, "Honestly, I thought I was the only one."

Without thinking, Ben asked, "Where's your sister?"

Henry bent down and grabbed the dead body underneath the arms again, hauling it up. He was stronger than he looked for such a skinny guy. He didn't look at Ben when he said "She...didn't come home. I did try to look for her but...it was chaos out there for so long. And by now..."

"Shit," Ben sighed, stepping forward and grabbing the body's legs. "Look, let me help you with that before you throw out your back or some shit. Did you kill the one in the hallway too?"

"Kill is perhaps the wrong word," Henry grunted softly as he pushed the body's shoulders over the windowsill. Ben held on until he felt the weight start to carry it down over the edge, then released it into oblivion. Henry watched it fall, as if to be certain it would strike the street below. It was a little creepy. "It did appear to have died some time ago, after all. I did, however, make certain that it wouldn't be walking around anymore."

"Did it bite you?"

Henry shook his head. "No, I was quite careful. I suppose you saw the news reports."

"Not anymore. But yeah, the first ones."

Henry sighed softly. "I truly was almost hoping I would be the only one left."

Ben didn't quite know what to make of that, so he helped Henry move the other body in from the hallway and toss it out the window, too, then raided the cupboards for something to eat. The apartment didn't have as good a haul as the first, but there were still some packaged noodles, crackers and tinned soup, which was better than nothing at all. Henry watched him, but didn't say anything. Ben didn't take as much as he really wanted to, just in case Henry needed some of it.

"We shouldn't go around just opening places up," he advised, "not if we can help it anyway--almost got taken down by three of those fucks when I did that."

"They are...rather more dangerous in groups than I expected," Henry agreed with a slight nod, "but I suppose that's how they managed to cause so much trouble. Things should be easier now that there are two of us."

Ben shook his head and laughed. "Sorry pal, but I don't plan on spending more time in a room alone with you than I have to--no offence. It's just safer that way."

"Well...yes I suppose that makes sense. After all, I could have a heart attack in my sleep tomorrow and wake up dead--then where would you be?" Henry laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh, it was more a creepy, self-effacing chuckle that raised the hairs on the back of Ben's neck. Getting away from the guy was definitely a good idea, after everything that happened, he was probably a little unhinged.

Not that Ben blamed him exactly.

***

In the end, Ben went cold turkey on his smokes. It was just too much of a damned risk to go looking for some since they weren't a necessity. It was a shitty irony that stopping would actually _prolong_ his life.

For four days he didn't see anything of Henry, which was fine enough by him. Once and a while he would hear thumping from the apartment above, or other sounds - but mostly he figured those were caused by the corpses.

He decided he didn't like thinking of them as "zombies," even if that was what they were. It made him feel too much like he was trapped in a bad movie. They were corpses, just ones that were too dumb to know they were dead.

On Tuesday afternoon--or he thought it was Tuesday afternoon, he'd sort of flaked on keeping track of the days--Ben was lying on his couch, bouncing an old baseball off the ceiling when there was a knock on the door.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Henry said as soon as Ben opened the door, he was out of breath and his eyes sparkled with what could have been either excitement or complete insanity.

"Don't worry, man." Ben tried to sound as casual as he could while his eyes scanned over Henry's body for any obvious injuries. "It's not like I'm doing anything important anyway."

Henry's smile was still apologetic as he moved as much into the doorway as Ben would allow and held up an object, about the size of his palm. "I found something I thought you might be interested in."

It took Ben a moment to make sense of what the thing was. Henry's hand was shaking quite a bit. At first he thought it was a baby monitor--but that didn't make any sense.

"A walkie-talkie?"

"A handheld transceiver," Henry corrected, although Ben didn't think there was much of a difference, if any. Henry seemed so desperate to get into the apartment that Ben finally stood back and let him, though his mind quickly reminded him where he had left the bat, in case he needed it. Henry went straight for the living room window. "I found it while I was looking for supplies--I think you need to hear this."

He turned the knob on the top, filling the room apartment with a sharp crackling static, then fiddled with a dial on the side; the static broke suddenly and there was a long breath of silence, then, _"...nybody out there...only ones...give a sign..."_

"Sounds almost like a kid..." Ben was at Henry's side before his brain could kick in to remind him that he was supposed to be watching his ass.

"Maybe," Henry nodded. His breath had slowed a little but he looked elated. "I don't think he's alone....the reception here isn't as good..."

_"...can get..."_ the message continued, _"....safe..."_ before the voice vanished in a sudden burst of static.

"No--no..." Henry gave the transceiver a sharp shake and turned the dial almost frantically--"there was more--it was much clearer before..."

"Hey, relax." Ben put a hand on his shoulder and moved carefully to take the transceiver before Henry could damage it accidentally. "Don't break it okay? Otherwise we'll never be able to try and get the kid back."

"Yes...yes..." Henry shook his head and stumbled away from the window, raking a hand through his dark hair so hard he had to have pulled some of it out. "I just...if there are others out there then maybe..."

Ben felt his chest tighten. Of course Henry would be thinking of his sister. For a moment Ben almost wished the other man hadn't found the transceiver--because sometimes there was nothing worse for a person than hope.

"How much of a range does this thing have?"

"Perhaps...a mile?" Henry dropped on to Ben's raggedy sofa as if all the strength had gone out of his legs. "Far too much for us to search on our own with those..._things_ out there."

Ben turned off the transceiver, not wanting to waste the batteries. He honestly wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of there being more survivors out there somewhere--even somewhere so nearby. It was almost a comfort to know that he and Henry weren't the last ones, but at the same time it made everything so much more uncertain. At least when he had been the last person left on the planet--even if it was only in his head--he had known what was what.

"Could I have that back?" Henry said finally, holding out his hand, "I think I should go up to the roof--see if I can get anything more."

"The roof?"

"I have some camping equipment." Henry stood, looking anxious again. "The best reception would be up there I think--certainly I can't go down to the street...And I can't miss another chance."

Ben gave the transceiver back; he didn't feel like he really had a choice.

***

Ben told himself not to wonder, not to worry. Henry was going to do whatever he wanted to anyway; he had his own prerogative, to find his sister. Ben couldn't really think of what _he_ wanted; probably just to survive a while, until he got sick of it, and by then, hopefully he would have a bullet to put in his head so he wouldn't end up walking around.

Night came, and Ben couldn't sleep. He rolled over and over in his bed until the blankets were a tangled mess around his legs. He had been used to sleepless nights even before the whole "walking dead" thing, but this time he found himself straining his ears, listening for the sounds of the city outside his bedroom window that weren't going to come. The world was different now and, for the first time, he was facing the idea that he might actually have to _do_ something differently than he had before.

At just after four in the morning, when all hope of sleep was lost, Ben got out of bed and went up to the roof.

Henry had rigged up a tent under the water tower with a long inter-connection of ropes as complicated as a spider's web. He was asleep on a stretch of blankets out in the open next to a camping lantern, a shoebox full of batteries (Ben could picture him going through abandoned apartments, taking the batteries out of every remote and child's toy he could get his hands on), and the transceiver, with its soft crackle of static. Ben found a free blanket in amongst the careful stacks of Henry's supplies and huddled down next to the sleeping man, picking up the radio and holding it close to his ear.

Henry sat up almost immediately and rubbed his eyes. "Anything?"

"Nah man," Ben shook his head, "go back to sleep. I'll wake you if I hear something."

Henry lay back down without a word and was asleep in seconds. Ben wondered how many sleepless nights the guy had already been through dealing with all bullshit the world had thrown at him while worrying about his sister. Ben didn't really expect them to find her, even if there were other survivors, but he sat and listened to the radio anyway; the wind blew against his face, cold as death.

***

"Do you think they can remember anything?"

There were at least two dozen of the undead on the street below. They wandered aimlessly, bumping into the wrecked cars and each other while hardly reacting at all. It was actually sort of disgusting to watch--like rubbernecking at a horrible accident--but interesting at the same time. Ben couldn't help but wonder what was going on in their brains, if anything.

"I suppose we can't say for certain," Henry answered, "It's not as if we can walk up and ask them 'do you remember your name, your family?'"

His green eyes went suddenly glassy as he looked away across the skyline. The Houtou Pharmaceuticals building downtown was on fire and most of the sky was coated in a faint grey haze. Ben was pretty sure he knew what Henry was thinking about, and felt bad for opening up the wound again. Or maybe it hadn't even closed yet. It took a long time to get over that kind of thing.

Ben put a pot of water to boil on the small propane camping stove - amazing how many things Henry had dug up in the empty apartments, enough to keep them going for a long time, actually, provided there was any _reason_ to keep going--and doled out spoonfuls of instant coffee into tin mugs. Henry had even found some smokes, but Ben was trying to curtail his habit a little, with no idea how long the things were going to have to last. Still, a smoke with his morning coffee sounded like the best idea he had ever had, especially after hours of listening to radio static. He was just lighting up and taking that first, beautiful drag when the transceiver - Ben barely noticed it was on after having listened to its low static hum for the past five hours - crackled sharply and resolved into a clear signal.

&lt;/i&gt;"Hello - is there anybody out there?"&lt;/i&gt;

Henry practically sprinted over from the roof's edge and grabbed up the transceiver before Ben could even think to reach for it.

"Hello? Hello - yes we're here," his voice broke with a barely constrained joy. Ben could feel his own heart hammering in response, more relieved by the sound of another human voice than he thought he ever would be.

_"Holy - Noah! Noah I got someone - hello - yeah, hi! Are you alive?"_

Henry laughed - the first real, honest laugh Ben had heard out of him. It was a really nice sound. "Yes we're alive. Who's this?"

_"My name is Grant. How 'bout you?"_

"I'm Henry, and there's someone else here with me, his name's Ben. Are you alone, Grant?"

_"Nah..."_ the transceiver crackled, and for a moment Ben thought they would lose the signal, but it held on. _"Noah's here with me."_

"Where are you?"

_"The old St Augustine Church."_

"Are there others there with you?"

Ben could actually feel Henry holding his breath. He reached out and squeezed the other man's shoulder as a show of support.

_"Not anymore." _Grant's answer shattered the anticipation like a hammer. _There was a guy here with his wife but they tried to leave and the zombies...ate them."_

Henry pulled himself away from Ben, so hard that Ben's palm stung as if he had dragged it across gravel.  
"Do you have food there, Grant? Water?"

&lt;/i&gt;"Uh...not really. Just some of those wafers and stuff."&lt;/i&gt;

"Okay Grant," Henry nodded his head towards the transceiver, as if the kid on the other end might actually be able to see him, "we're going to talk again, okay? Use this frequency to call us, and you can try other ones to see if someone else answers. Ben and I have to talk about something."

_"Sure..."_ Grant sounded reluctant to let Henry go, not that Ben blamed him particularly. _"We'll talk again soon, right?"_

"Of course we will, Grant."

_"Okay, bye Henry."_

The static was a shock after hearing the sound of another voice. Henry actually shut the radio off for the first time and sat down next to the stove. The water had boiled over sometime during their conversation and washed out the flame, so he shut it off. Ben stood watching him, the kick of the wind blowing his wild red hair around his face, studying Henry's expression. Torn was the only way to describe it. Ben could sympathise; his own chest felt tight with warring emotions--a desperate sort of hope (because if there were two other people out there, maybe there were more) mixed with an awful sense of defeat--because they were just _so far away_.

"We should help them."

"What?"

"Did you hear him, Ben?" Henry's voice was so sharp it actually seemed to cut its way into Ben's head. "They can't survive on communion wafers."

"So we're supposed to risk _our_ necks?" Ben threw up his hands in disgust. The answer came faster and easier than he expected. "No Henry--fuck no. Those _things_ are right down there waiting for us."

"So we should stay here and wait to die, then?" Henry countered, climbing back to his feet. He turned his back on Ben as if the argument wasn't worth having, and started rooting through his gathered supplies. "Eventually our supplies will run out."

"They'll run out faster with two extra people!"

"So that's it, then?" Henry turned to him and his eyes were viciously angry, sparkling bright, but at the same time sad. "We leave two other living people to rot? What about basic human kindness?"

"In case you haven't noticed, the world isn't exactly playing by the old rules anymore, man. Surviving is the only thing you can do."

"Then you can stay here--stay alive by yourself. I'm going to help them."

"Fine, get your fucking self killed--see if I care!"

***

His apartment stank.

Actually the whole damned floor stank. Something was rotting big time, and it was pretty obvious what it was. The smell had probably been there forever, Ben had just never noticed it when he was inside all the time. He retreated back to his bedroom and opened every window he could, then stretched out on the bed with the pillow over his head.

His anger had pretty much petered out, leaving an empty sensation in its wake. Ben knew that it shouldn't have been such a big deal to be alone again, after all, he barely knew Henry, and he had been just fine being alone before the unscheduled invasion of the walking dead. The trouble was, he had already somehow ended up needing Henry, or had got it stuck in his mind that Henry needed him. Maybe it was a little of both, or maybe it was just that Henry took the responsibility of having to survive off his shoulders--he could focus just on Henry and not have to really think about himself. Regardless of the reasoning, he knew that alone he had no real motivation to go on breathing; he would probably end up jumping out his window, or hanging himself in his closet with an old belt. Then he'd dangle from his closet rod, not completely alive but not completely dead, until his body finally rotted away.

Die here, die there, death was everywhere. That was the damn problem with life; it generally induced death, no matter what you tried to do about it. That was the bit Henry wasn't seeing, they were all going to die eventually, even those two unlucky bastards stuck at St. Augustine's.

Or maybe, Ben thought, that was the part _he_ wasn't seeing. Sure, they were all going to die one day, but there were better things to do than sit around waiting for it. Every day you opened your eyes, you were looking Death in the eye and saying _"Go ahead buddy, just try it today."_

So maybe they would die if they tried to get to the church. It was either that or sit and wait to die once their supplies ran out. At least if they tried, then they died _trying_. Not like cowards.

Ben had never been a coward, or the sort of person to give up on living. Even if his life was a useless waste, it was still his life, and he had always done everything he could to take it by the balls.

Just because he was surrounded by the dead, that didn't mean he had to change.

***

"I'm sure this won't be as hard as it looks."

Henry was poised to lower the ladder on the last level of the fire escape. There were two of the walking corpses at the far end of the alley, and at least three others on the street, but none of them had noticed Ben and Henry yet. Down at nearly street level the smell was absolutely overpowering, like a slaughterhouse in summer, a rank, coppery, rottenness that stuck to the back of Ben's throat.

He juggled his baseball bat in his sweaty palms, pausing to wipe them on the front of his jeans, and then adjusted his bag, "Just for the record: if I die because of this, you're the first person I'm going to chew on when I come back as one of those bastards."

Henry chuckled softly, "Fair enough so. This is going to make a great deal of noise I suspect, are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be. Go for it."

Metal screamed as Henry pushed the ladder down. They might as well have rung a dinner bell, because the things sure as hell could still hear if nothing else, and instantly they were all turning and lurching towards the sound pretty much in sync. They were slow as hell though, that much Henry was right about.

Ben hit the pavement first, shifting anxiously from foot to foot as Henry came down behind him. The closest of the undead was a man in a construction worker's vest, with just a tangle of gristle and bone where his throat used to be. Its mouth worked open and closed soundlessly as it staggered towards Ben. There were two more behind it, and more still beyond those closing in.

"Hurry the hell up Henry. C'mon man they're going to box us in!"

"I..." Out of the corner of his eye Ben saw Henry twist helplessly and kick at the ladder, "I'm stuck! One of the straps is caught on something!"

Ben let lose a long string of curses. "Well fix it!"

"I'm trying my best!"

Ben lunged forward and swung the bat at the nearest undead. It struck the thing's head with a wet crack and the skull caved in like a rotten melon. He hit the one behind it in the ribs, but although flesh and bone gave way under the impact, the damn thing didn't even seem to notice, just kept pushing forward and closed its one working hand around Ben's upper arm. Ben shoved it backwards and it fell hard, tripping up one of the ones behind it.

"Ben!"

Henry finally had his feet on the ground. One strap from his bag still dangled from a loose bolt on the fire escape, but he was free. Ben brought the bat down on the head of the creature as it tried to rise, then ran for it, rushing the opening at the end of the alley with Henry before they could be completely boxed in. Ben's sleeve was snagged by rotting fingers, but as they ran free onto the street, still under the clouded gaze of dozens of shambling corpses--there were a lot more than they had been able to see from the roof concealed in shadowed storefronts and behind wrecked cars, who hadn't been moving before because they'd had nothing to move after. Ben realized it really was going to be easier than he thought. As long as they kept moving and didn't let the bastards trap them anywhere, they could manage just fine.

***

Grant wasn't as young as he had sounded over the radio. Not that he was old either--eighteen, maybe nineteen on the upswing--but he had the energy of someone much younger; he struck Ben as the sort of guy who, no matter what happened, he wasn't going to let it get him down.

It was good for Henry, Ben thought; in the first few hours they spent together he was sure he saw Henry smile more.

Grant's sullen blonde friend Noah, on the other hand, seemed like the sort of guy who hated the world no matter _what_ was going on; which must have made the whole Zombie Apocalypse thing pretty easy for him. He was only interested in Ben's smokes and getting a razor to scrape the layer of golden stubble off his chin; then he broke out the communion wine, saying he needed a drink if he was going to deal with "a bunch of idiots." The wine was nasty-ass stuff, but Ben had some anyway.

He had to admit, it felt good to have people around. It almost felt...normal.

***

_Ben sat on the porch, watching the midnight sky glow orange from the stubble-fires. The air was heavy, smoky-sweet, unnaturally warm, and the full moon hung low over the house, red as blood and big enough to cover the entire sky. He leaned back in his deck chair, put his feet up on the railing and breathed in deep._

_The smell was all wrong. There was oil in it, dead wood, and something like old meat. It stuck in the back of Ben's throat and turned his stomach. Against the fierce glow of the burning earth the undead seemed to materialize like shadows, their low moans like a roll of thunder, raising the hairs on the back of Ben's neck._

_They were coming, coming for him--and right at the head of their endless ranks, like a general riding ahead of his army, was Ben's brother Jason, wearing the same clothes he'd had on when he left to work in the fields the day Ben finally decided he'd had enough and walked out on his family without looking back. Jason's guts trailed around his knees, his throat was torn open down to the bone, and his wild blue eyes that had once drawn the adoration of all the girls--and some of the boys--in town were clouded and unseeing._

_He was the first to reach the edge of the porch, mouth hanging open to show gore-slicked teeth. Ben scrambled from his seat and pressed his back against the house, too panicked to think of escape._

_"Jason please...please don't..."_

_His brother's corpse pulled itself over the porch railing, moving with mechanical determination; the rest were just behind him, like a single great entity that knew only hunger. Ben sucked back air desperately, tasting rotten and burning flesh on the back of his tongue, stomach rolling as the creature that had been his brother closed in on him with outstretched arms, as if to welcome him home._

***

Ben bolted upright with a scream trapped in the back of his throat that he only just managed to swallow down, though it lodged in behind his ribs like a shard of glass, stinging as he tried to breathe. It took him several moments to remember where he was; the still-lingering reek of incense helped, as did Grant's heavy snores. Ben's heart slowed as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. Someone had lit the candles under one of the statues of the saints--it was probably the Virgin Mary, but what Ben knew about religion of any kind couldn't fill a thimble.

"Hail Mary, full of grace" was about all he knew, that and something about "the valley of the shadow of death."

Ben stood, shaking off the tangled blankets and rubbing the small of his back--a pew was definitely not the proper sort of place to sleep, even the flat of the roof had seemed more comfortable. Grant was sawing logs with one leg hanging off his pew, arm thrown high above his head, chocolate-brown hair a rumpled mess. If the legions of the dead hadn't already been up and walking around, he would have spooked them right out of their graves; Ben couldn't imagine how he had slept through it.

Out of habit, he pulled on his jacket, forgetting that he wouldn't actually be going outside for a smoke, and stepped into the aisle, lighting up as he gazed at the imposing figure of Christ on the cross hanging above the pulpit. In the low light the meticulous details of his suffering seemed to shine, as if wet with real blood.

A shit way to go out, Ben thought, even though the guy looked more or less indifferent in his suffering.

"Do you know the story of Lazarus?"

Ben jumped, his heart for a moment actually seeming to climb out his throat at the sound of Henry's voice. "Holy shit man, you scared me..."

Henry smiled ruefully as he stepped out of the shadows surrounding the emergency exit. He had the fire axe they'd salvaged from the apartment building in his hand, gripped so tightly his knuckles were white. His hair hung into his eyes, shadowing them, but somehow Ben could feel the other man's gaze on his skin like the burning end of a cigarette.

"Lazarus," Henry continued, "he was brought back from the dead. Christ himself came back from the dead too, as you might recall."

"Zombie Jesus..." Ben pressed a smoke in between his lips and sighed as he fished for his lighter, "that's just great."

Henry laughed, but it wasn't a good sound; it made Ben's blood cold and he found himself watching the other man out of the corner of his eye as he smoked, looking for...what? Signs of insanity? They were all a little insane, probably. Hell, the whole world had gone insane; they could hardly be blamed if they went along for the ride.

"Elizabeth was quite dutiful about attending church." Henry looked up at the passively calm face of the dying Christ and Ben could actually _feel_ the anger radiating off him. "But still, there was nothing here to protect her. And I didn't do any better."

It clicked in Ben's brain suddenly what Henry had been up to before he'd been jolted from his nightmare. The cafe where his sister had waited tables was only two blocks over.

"You want to go look for her, don't you?"

Henry turned his gaze guiltily to the floor. "I have to--I could never forgive myself otherwise."

"She's not out there man." Ben put a hand on Henry's shoulder, felt the muscles coil beneath his touch as if Henry might lash out and hit him, "If she's still alive, she's somewhere safer than the damn coffee shop. And if she isn't...you don't want to see that."

"But I have to." Henry turned back towards the emergency exit, the head of the axe dragging softly across the stone floor as he walked. "If I don't at least make some effort, I won't ever be forgiven."

"Now, in the dark? At least wait until morning..."

"It has to be now," the soft _click_ of the door's latch disengaging made Ben's heart skip a beat, "don't worry, I'll come back eventually, regardless."

"That's a bad fucking joke, man. Hey--Henry wait!" Ben caught the door before it slammed and stepped out into the night without thinking that once the door was closed behind him, he wouldn't be able to get back in. Unarmed, he scanned the empty parking lot for Henry, but a runaway truck had tipped over the nearest streetlight and he couldn't see a damned thing but shadows.

Something bumped against the trash bin near the door, and a soft moan of frustration raised the hairs on the back of Ben's neck. He bolted forward on instinct, not wanting to be caught standing still without even his damned bat to protect himself. He had no idea how the creatures tracked people, but it was obvious from the sound alone that he had someone's attention.

He saw something dart through the very edge of a functioning streetlight at the end of the block and had to bite back the urge to call out Henry's name. Just the noise of his runners hitting the sidewalk alone was too much.

He took the corner on the next block fast, slipped on what sounded like broken glass, and ran into something warm, solid and wet. The smell of rotten flesh hit him the same time he felt broken teeth sink into the arm of his leather jacket. Cursing in surprise, Ben grabbed the thing by the hair and pulled, gagging as he felt the scalp slip from the force. The dead woman gnashed her teeth, chewing her own lolling tongue in the process, and nearly took Ben down with her as she stumbled back and fell over, her fingers so deep in the leather of his sleeve he swore he heard it tear.

He ditched the jacket and ran, scurrying over the top of a parked car and half-turning his ankle as he hit the sidewalk again, nearly falling through the cafe door. With shaking hands he flicked the lock as one of the creatures bumped against the wide window, moaning and pounding the glass with rot-swollen palms.

The noise was going to attract others pretty fast--and he couldn't see Henry anywhere. The cafe was a wreck of overturned chairs and bloodied tables. The shit had gone down there, big time. Broken dishes and spilled food crunched under Ben's shoes as he moved back towards the kitchen. A second pair of hands joined the first pounding on the glass, and something under an overturned baby carrier moved as he passed by, but Ben didn't dare stop to take a look, instead he stepped through the kitchen door and turned on the light.

It looked like a slaughter house, bits of flesh and sticky clotted blood on every visible surface; and in the center of it all, Henry, axe in hand, covered head to toe in red and black gore, his breath coming in rough, rasping pants that shook his whole body. There was nothing recognizable left of whatever had attacked him, just a bloody mess of meat chunks and sparkling white bone.

"Henry?" Ben edged towards him, trying to meet the man's blankly- staring eyes, to draw him out of his head and back into reality. In the main room the chorus of moans and pounding hands was quickly becoming deafening. The glass was strong, but it wasn't going to hold out forever. "Henry man, are you okay?"

Henry dropped the axe. Ben jumped despite himself at the clatter it made as it struck the floor. "She isn't here..."

He was crying, Ben realized, the tears cleaning tracks on his gore-covered face.

"It's okay man...she might be out there somewhere yet. Really."

"You..." Henry shook his head, "you don't believe that."

"It doesn't matter what I believe. C'mon, let's get the fuck out of here."

***

Ben stared down the barrel of the gun and met Noah's fierce violet eyes. At his back he could hear Henry panting for breath and the undead beating against the emergency exit door, moaning in frustrated hunger.

"Don't point that thing at me."

"Don't tell me what to do, asshole." Ben had never seen anyone hold a gun so damned steady on another living person. "What are you idiots doing coming back here?"

"Noah..." Grant grabbed at the hem of the blond's shirt, pleading, "don't shoot them!"

"I didn't get bitten," Ben promised, "and neither did Henry."

Henry hadn't said a word. The fact that he was being so quiet scared the shit out of Ben, but Ben couldn't bring himself to look away from Noah to check on him; any movement seemed like inviting Noah to pull the trigger.

"How do you expect me to believe that?"

"If I thought I was going to become one of those things I'd _ask_ you to shoot me! Why the hell did you let us in here if you're just doing to kill us?"

"He's not going to kill you!" Grant's voice cracked with panic. "Noah - please!"

"I'd rather shoot you in here than have you out there making all that fucking noise and bringing them to us," Noah said levelly, his logic as sharp as a bullet to the brainpan.

Ben felt sick. He swallowed hard and ground his teeth together. "You fucking asshole..."

Noah took a deep breath and pulled the hammer back on the revolver, Grant made a sound like a sob, and Ben resolved not to close his eyes.

Then Henry reached out and wrapped his hand around the barrel of the gun.

"Don't point that at him. And don't point it at me either." Henry's voice was sharp and cold as ice; Ben actually shuddered at the sound. "We are not infected."

"Bullshit..." Noah ground out, but Ben actually saw his resolve waiver for a moment. "Let go."

They stared each other down. Ben could feel the tension in the air like the crackle of a live wire--it was actually scarier than the damned gun. Finally Henry let go, and Noah lowered the weapon to his side in some kind of silent understanding. Ben let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and Grant sat down on the edge of the pulpit, pressing his shaking hands to his knees.

"Ben and I will quarantine ourselves," Henry offered, still in that scary-calm tone of voice. "The time from infection to death is only a matter of hours--if tonight comes and neither of us are interested in making dinner out of the two of you, would you be satisfied that we're not infected?"

"Maybe."

"I suppose that will have to be good enough," Henry turned and began to walk away, looking just a little unsteady on his legs, like a man too long at sea, but managing to stand straight and tall. "I don't know about you Ben, but I intend to be quarantined in the men's room. I need to clean up."

Ben figured that was still a pretty lousy situation, but it was better than having his brains splattered all over the pulpit. "Thanks for letting us in. You're still an asshole though."

"Go fuck yourself." Noah tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and walked away.

"You gonna be okay, kid?" Ben asked Grant before he left, thinking he still looked more than a little pale underneath the sheen of sweat on his face.

"Yeah," Grant flashed him a wide yet shaky smile, "I'll bring you guys some blankets an' stuff later, if ya want."

"That'd be nice," he clapped Grant on the shoulder reassuringly, grateful that someone in the world still had some basic human kindness.

***

"Have you ever had a near-death experience?"

Ben could only see Henry's face by reflection as the brunet, now dressed only in a pair of sweat pants taken from the goodwill box, scrubbed the last of the blood off his forehead.

Henry glanced at Ben's reflection. "You mean the sort where my life flashes before my eyes?"

"Yeah." Ben slouched a little more against the bathroom stall, trying to look casual. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was worried about what was going to happen in the time between the sun coming up beyond the small square of frosted glass that served as a window and it sinking down into another dead night. They weren't going to die yet, he told himself, it just wasn't possible; he didn't feel like dying now.

"No, I don't believe I have."

"Not even when Noah was pointing that gun at us."

There was a long pause.

"No," Henry answered finally, "not even then."

"I've been thinking..." Ben chewed the inside of his lip, watched Henry turn away from the sink and slouch against the wall, sliding down until he was finally seated on the tiled floor.

Henry laughed his bitter, tired laugh again. "Perhaps we're all having one right now?"

"Nah." Ben walked over and joined him on the floor. There was barely enough room between the edge of the stalls and the sinks, but he managed, "More like...A near-life experience."

"Near-life?"

"Sure." He could feel the heat of Henry's bare shoulder against his own, not the vicious fevered heat of the creature that had tried to sink its teeth into his arm--the skin on his arm still stung, and even though it wasn't broken or even bruised he could still feel the pressure of the attempted bite--but a warm, gentle, living heat. "Think about it. Before all this, how much living did you actually do? Me, I spent all day at a lousy job just to pay rent. It was total bullshit. Now we don't have to worry about bills, politics...any of that. We can just live for once."

"Ahaha--if we can avoid being eaten."

"Well," Ben shrugged, "I didn't say my theory was perfect."

"So you're saying...we should do everything we can to survive, even if our existence is really one step away from death."

"Hell no, man!" Ben rapped his knuckles against Henry's thigh, "Surviving and _living_ are two different things."

Henry smiled wanly at him. "And didn't you say we can only survive, the way the world is now?"

"Yeah..." Ben raked his hair back, shook away the few coppery stands that came out between his fingers. "I did say that I guess. But things were different back then."

"Back then? Ben, that was only a few hours ago..."

"You just gotta point out all my flaws, huh?"

"I'm sorry," Henry's head tipped until it was resting on Ben's shoulder, "you were saying..."

"I've always been the sort of guy, if the world tells me I gotta do something, that's exactly the opposite of what I'm gonna do. So if the rest of the world wants to roll over and die, then I'm gonna live."

He felt Henry nod against his shoulder, "A noble ambition, to be sure. But I fail to see how we're going to accomplish this in our current surroundings."

Ben grinned at him. "We're not."

Henry raised an eyebrow, "You have some plan, then?"

"I have lots of plans." Ben took a deep breath, let it out slowly, "but I guess, if you didn't want to go along with it, that's your business. I mean, I would understand--with your sister and everything."

There was a long moment of silence. The tap in one of the sinks dripped, overlaying the soft rasp of Henry's breathing and the thrum of Ben's heartbeat. Finally Henry asked, "What did you have in mind?"

"Leave the city," Ben answered instantly. "I mean, this place is so thick with these things it's pretty much a death trap. We're gonna get sloppy one day and it's all over." Self consciously, he rubbed at the spot on his arm, scratching it lightly with his nails to try and see if he could make it feel normal again. To the eye there was still nothing wrong with it, not even a bruise, but in his head he couldn't escape the sensation of teeth in his skin. "But if we go into the country somewhere--where it's secluded, ya know--I think we can manage on our own pretty well for at least a while."

"For a while," Henry muttered softly.

"Hey--we can't count on too much, right? But my family has...had anyway--a place. I haven't been there in...years."

He didn't say _my brother might still be there_ because he was trying to convince himself the idea had nothing to do with that. It was just convenient. Sure, he was worried about Jason, but maybe his brother hadn't even spared a thought for him. It had been such a long time, and Ben hadn't even had the decency to give him a phone call. Then again, Jason had always worried about him. In his heart, Ben thought it was pretty likely that his brother had probably done nothing _but_ worry about him since the day he had left. Even when the dead got up and started walking around, Jason had probably worried about what was happening to Ben more than what was happening to himself. He had always been like that.

It would be nice to maybe see Jason again, maybe to apologize, or maybe just say _"I missed you like hell bro_;" even if it didn't seem entirely fair to Ben that he might get see his brother again when Henry had to be without his sister.

"It'd still be a place to go, anyhow. I guess it's up to you though--you wanna die, you wanna survive...or you wanna live?"

Henry sighed, picked himself up from the floor, head down, and leaned over the sink. Ben felt an ache form immediately in his chest; certain he already knew Henry's answer. He wasn't sure he could cope with it, honestly, even though he hadn't known Henry long--at least in any way that wasn't entirely superficial. Knowing someone from sixty-second elevator rides maybe once a week was different than half-sleeping next to the same guy while you waited for signs of life over a radio, or running shoulder to shoulder with him down a street choked with walking corpses; and it was definitely different than watching the guy really fall apart for the first time, covered in blood and guts.

If Henry said no, that he would rather stay than try and go, Ben would stay too. There didn't seem to be a point going it alone.

"You know," Henry said finally, "I think I would like to try living for a while."

Ben jumped to his feet, a sharp bubble of laughter breaking free from his throat as he threw an arm around Henry's shoulders. "That's great man, great."

He leaned against Henry, and Henry leaned back against him, warm, alive, smelling not of rot, but sharply sweet from the bathroom dispenser soap.

When Henry turned and kissed him, the act itself wasn't much of a surprise. What caught Ben off guard and caused him to make a tiny noise of shock in the back of his throat was the complete desperation of it, the pressure of Henry's lips, and the furious sweep of his tongue.

"I was going to let it kill me."

"Yeah?" Ben didn't know what else to say. He had guessed that already, before Henry had even left the church, and it was hard to concentrate on Henry's words while Henry was pressing him back against the wall of the bathroom stall. "Why didn't you then?"

"I was afraid," Henry confessed with his lips and tongue on the ridge of Ben's collarbone. Ben shuddered, anticipating teeth, but Henry's hunger was different.

"Afraid to die?"

"Perhaps. Or afraid to go on living as one of them. Although inversely, I'm not certain how to go on living as I am now."

"You'll figure it out." Ben dug his fingers into Henry's hips, pulled the whole length of their bodies together. Henry was stone hard, vibrating with pent-up energy, as if all the life he had boxed away when he prepared to die was trying to tear its way out through his skin. His need was bitter-sweet and just a little salty on the back of Ben's tongue.

Henry put a warm, smooth hand down the front of Ben's pants, curled strong fingers around his cock and murmured in his ear, "_We'll_ figure it out."

Ben groaned against Henry's neck, hands sliding down the back of the loose sweatpants to stroke his ass before finally pushing them out of the way as Henry drew him out of his jeans. Their cocks bumped together and Henry hissed through his teeth before smothering the sound against Ben's mouth. Ben tangled the fingers of one hand in Henry's hair, wet and cool after a wash in the sink, and palmed his cock with the other; Henry's pace was a little frantic but Ben matched it, slicking his hand with fluid on the upstroke then dragging skin over skin all the way to the base. It was hard to breathe with Henry's body pressed against him, Henry's hand on his cock, and Henry's mouth against his all at the same time. When Ben tried to suck in air, Henry's tongue was in the way, and the stall at his back made it impossible to escape, not that he wanted to; Ben's chest hurt and the room seemed to tilt around him, either from lack of oxygen or the sheer, raw _want_ pooling in the pit of his stomach. He pushed into Henry's hand, moaned into his mouth and let the pleasure swamp him, shuddering helplessly as he came into Henry's loose, hot fist. Henry's come splashed against his wrist and ran over his palm, and gradually their kisses slowed to languid touches of lips and long, wet swipes of tongue.

They leaned against each other, catching their breath, and in the net of warm air that had formed around their bodies, all the dangers in the world seemed like nothing they wouldn't be able to handle.

***

The jeep's tires squealed on the pavement as it swung the wrong way off an on-ramp, broke free of the last snarls of abandoned and wrecked cars and tore onto an abandoned straightaway, heading East.

"Jesus-Fucking-Christ!" Noah gripped the dashboard with bone-white fingers. "Who the hell thought it was a good idea to let this crazy fucker drive?"

Henry laughed--a full-out roaring belly laugh that rose up even over the howling wind in Ben's ears.

"Don't kill us, Henry!" Grant had one hand on the back of Noah's seat and the other wrapped around the Jeep's roll bar, "I don't wanna be zombie road-paste!"

"You're quite safe Grant," Henry promised, though he didn't let up on the gas any. All around them the ruins of the city sped past--buildings burning, all their windows broken out, stray dogs of all sizes, already learning to rely on instincts their masters had thought long bred out of them, raiding garbage cans. A Rottweiler with a dead rabbit in its jaws turned after the jeep as it sped by, but it didn't give chase. With all the fire and rot Ben expected the air to reek, but it was as fresh and invigorating against his face as the city air had ever been.

Ben felt a sudden surge of joy rise up in his chest, tightening his throat and pushing against his heart; nothing, it seemed, could stop them now. No matter what happened, they would give it their all to live. The sensation got so big he had to let it out, so with his hands still gripping the back of Henry's seat, he threw back his head and let out a loud, "Waaaahooo!"

"What the hell?" Noah demanded, twisting in his seat to fix Ben with a fierce violet glare, "are you a fucking caveman or something?"

"Just living it up, Blondie--You should try it sometime!"

Grant looked at Ben, flashed him an ear-to-ear grin, then popped the buckle on his seatbelt and climbed to his feet, bracing against the roll bar as he whooped with all the air in his lungs, the sound carrying for miles. Ben sprang up and joined him, the wind whipping the hair back from his face and stinging his cheeks.

"Idiots!" Noah shouted over the clamour. "Both of you are fucking idiots!"

It took Henry so long to stop laughing that his throat must have ached.

-End-


End file.
